SMS S 21 (1913)
The sister boat S 19
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S 21 was a large torpedo boat of the Imperial Navy . The boat was part of a twelve-unit series that wasawardedto Schichau-Werke by the Reichsmarinamt in1912. S 21 sank on April 21, 1915 in a collision with the small cruiser SMS Hamburg .
history
Construction and commissioning
The Schichau shipyard in Elbing , West Prussia, began building the S 13 to S 24 series of boats in 1911 . The ninth boat with hull number 872, for which the designation S 21 was intended, was ready to be launched on February 15, 1913 . The boat was completed by the summer of that year and was put into active service by the Navy on July 23. The construction cost around 1,600,000 marks .
Calls
The boat formed the VII. Torpedo Boat Flotilla with the sister ships of the complete series and in this context belonged to the 14th Torpedo Boat Half Flotilla with the boats S 19 to S 23 .
At the beginning of the war it was used in the outpost service in the North Sea and as a submarine safety device when the heavy units of the deep sea fleet advanced .
loss
During a routine voyage with the small cruiser SMS Hamburg , this S 21 rammed amidships and cut it behind the bridge . The attempt to underpin the stern was unsuccessful. The boat sank to 53 ° 47 ' N , 8 ° 9' E with the loss of 36 deaths.
literature
- Harald Fock: Black journeymen , Volume 2: Destroyers before 1914 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1981, ISBN 3-7822-0206-6 .
- Harald Fock: Z-before! , Volume 1: International development and war missions of destroyers and torpedo boats 1914 to 1939 , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Hamburg 2001, ISBN 3-7822-0762-9 .
- Erich Gröner : The German warships 1815-1945 Volume 2: Torpedo boats, destroyers, speed boats, minesweepers, mine clearance boats , Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 1998, ISBN 3-7637-4801-6 .